


Seven Years Bad Luck

by ThisAintBC



Category: due South
Genre: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski (background), F/M, Gen, M/M, Rated for swearing, Stream of Consciousness, Undercover Aftermath, dsvb challenge, not actually Ray Kowalski/Ray Vecchio, post CotW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisAintBC/pseuds/ThisAintBC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can only lie to yourself for so long before it starts to feel like the truth, and the Sunshine State isn't doing anyone any favors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Years Bad Luck

Maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have come up here.

It was hard, being undercover, and Florida hadn't changed that. The words muttered in the middle of the night were different, sure, and when he got a phone call it wasn't somebody's life but a lost order of bowling balls, but in a lot of ways it was the same. He got up in the morning and put on clothes he would never have been able to afford on a detective's salary paying taxes on his mother's house, but that was the point, wasn't it? That he wasn't a detective anymore?

Or that's what he thought, at least, until one night Stella called to him from his office and pulled out a stack of papers. He wanted to deny it, but there, staring him in the face, were the case files he'd been building up: Johnny, who was using again, who could potentially be flipped and used to track down a major gang leader, because he wasn't a bad kid, not really; Lexa, whose hair was as blue as the air after she'd finished cursing, who knew everything that went on in the neighborhood and who he should probably be much more wary of; Matt, who was far too skittish to be up to anything good; the list went on and on, and he had to admit she had a point.

She gave him the ring and gave him the plane tickets and told him to come back when he'd sorted himself out or not at all, and damn but he loved that woman.

Still, strong and fearless as she was, she was far from all-knowing and had a bad habit of misjudging her ex-husband just when it mattered most. He knew she thought Kowalski would set him straight, either through direct confrontation or by sending him packing as quickly as possible—whatever that happened to entail. He knew, and was glad that he had married a woman who wouldn't cut him any slack, who wasn't afraid to use the resources available to her to get what she wanted.

She probably hadn't expected Kowalski to be conciliatory or to strike up a friendship with Ray almost against his will, but that was exactly what had happened. The bastard told the same three stories on repeat and wouldn’t shut up about baseball and dancing and the stupidest fucking things—and he solved cases like a dream and calculated each jerk of nervous energy like a man living paycheck to paycheck bets on horses. Welsh glared at him and kicked him around his office right up until Kowalski came blundering in and made two smartass comments, and before Ray knew what was happening all three of them were sitting on the couch pretending like what they were drinking wasn’t more Irish than coffee at eight in the goddamn morning—he could hear the echoing vowels and crisp consonants hurling themselves across the border even now—because he and Kowalski had been chasing all over the city until three hours ago and Welsh’s ongoing feud or dick measuring contest or whatever it was with his brother spiraled into the kind of nightmare that involved the feds.

(Ray had walked into the precinct and into Frannie’s glare, but Kowalski had grabbed his sleeve and told her something about a coffee machine and she was off like a shot, had gone to bat for him without so much as a by-your-leave. Then, when it was time for dinner, he’d marched him out the door and into the passenger seat, sat him down in front of the same lasagna he’d been eating every week since he was a kid in a chair whose familiar grooves he hadn’t realized he’d missed. It was a miracle Kowalski’s paperwork, not to mention his nose, survived, after last time.)

And a month later, somehow he was still there, and he only felt like sewing Kowalski’s fucking mouth _shut_ once or twice a day, and when he remembered his watch he even bothered to give Dewey the time of day half the time.

"And so then I said to Fraser, I said, 'The wolf’s a fucking _wolf_ , Fraser, he thinks an _outhouse_ smells like heaven,’ and..."

"Kowalski," he said, quietly, grabbing his sleeve like it was his last beer at closing time and not caring that the whole station was standing right there.

And Kowalski looked at him with a mouth like the sun off a glacier, and rolled his eyes a little and began chattering away at him, coaxing him out the doors and to the GTO.

"All right, Vecchio, let's get some fresh Chicago air and you can talk or not talk or do whatever so long as it does not involve a wolf, okay?"

He didn't bother with a seatbelt—he felt like that would be cheating, somehow, even though Kowalski side-eyed him like hell for it—and he stared out the window as they muscled their way up onto the interstate and began heading east. That didn't last long; soon enough Kowalski turned off, and made a sharp right and a left and went straight down a road Ray hadn't even known existed.

Before he knew it, they were at the lake, and he stared out at all of that nature that Benny loved so much, all of it edged with brown and dirt and as far from elegant as anything you could imagine; even as close as Chicago could get to nature there were still all sorts of bottles and cans and the remnants of picnic table, and he couldn't help but laugh. He laughed about nature, he laughed about poetry, he laughed about Stella and Benny and his whole goddamn life, because he'd laughed about it before and because it was better than punching in Kowalski's stupid face.

Then Kowalski kissed him, cool and dry, and Stella definitely hadn't seen that coming.

"I'm not—you're not—Stella," he stuttered, about as far from a mafia don as he had ever been, so he stuttered some more just to revel in how utterly unsmooth it was.

"I know," said Kowalski, and damn him anyways for being the golden child out of the two of them, for knowing about undercover, for being his friend, for his stupid little stunt that worked of all the fucking things. "Say hi to Stella for me."

And because Ray couldn't forgive him for all of that, he replied viciously, "Don't take too long getting up to Canada, Kowalski, or I'm gonna have to hurt you for breaking his goddamn heart."

Then comes the part the movies always skip over, the part where it’s awkward, deciding how and when to drive back and sitting next to each other almost like strangers. Ray’s more sure than ever that the Church has got the right idea with Confession in a set place with a set routine to follow that leads you right into and out of the building. For no better reason than because he can’t resist it, he takes a jab at Kowalski for acting out the priest, and Kowalski snipes right back, “Yeah, right, no priest ever kissed _me_ , got somethin’ you wanna say, Vecchio?”

So everything’s right with the world, sort of, like a street downtown after a big storm has swept through—which is to say everything’s wrong with it that’s usually wrong with it and probably some more besides, but it seems cleaner than normal and if you squint just right you can maybe make out a rainbow between the buildings. Kowalski shoves him into the bullpen and they get yelled at because neither of them gives a damn about paperwork most days and within five minutes he’s got a low-grade headache itching at the corners of his skull. And he looks around at his family at the dinner table and doesn’t feel like he’s putting on an act when he asks his Ma what she would think of inviting Benny down for a few weeks. _Turnabout’s fair play, Kowalski,_ he thinks, even if really he mostly just wants to see his best friend. Dialing Stella’s number feels like stepping into an interview room for the very first time all over again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the delightful ThisIsTeal and the fantastic ZombieCheerios. Thank you guys! Without you this would be a lot less coherent. That said, all flaws and faults are mine and mine alone; they have done their best, alas.
> 
> Let me know if you caught the blink-and-you-miss-it City Slickers reference!


End file.
